Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili

“V” for Victory

Harry Truman and Franklin Roosevelt

On November 29, 1948, President Truman met with the top leaders of the Marshall Plan--George Marshall, Paul Hoffman , and Averell Harriman.

Truman signs Econ. Recovery Act

Can Stalin Block It?

Soviet opposition to the Marshall Plan.

The Berlin Blockade

Truman v. Stalin

Operation Vittles, as the airlift was unofficially named, began on June 26 when USAF C-47s carried 80 tons of food into Berlin to help maintain a minimum level of existence.

the man who created the framework for the Berlin Airlift.

General Curtis LeMay . . .

Lt. Gail S. Halvorson, "Uncle Wiggly Wings,” originator of the candy drop to Berlin children.

Nixon

Alger Hiss at the UN conference with Truman

Mao proclaims the creation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

Chiang Kai-shek

Truman and Douglas MacArthur

The Rosenbergs

Atomic spies Sing Sing

Eisenhower and Dulles greet . . .

Washington, 1957

After the war, Bao Dai briefly joined ranks with Ho Chi Minh and the Vietminh, only to flee into exile in Hong Kong and France from 1949-1955. He returned to Vietnam to rule under French control until he was ousted by Diem in a rigged election in 1954.

Imre Nagy

Hungarian politician Imre Nagy (1895 -1958) first became prime minister in 1953, at the time revolution broke out in Hungary. Executed in 1958.

In 1989, with the collapse of communist Hungary, they dug up and found the skeletons of the rebels and reburied Imre and his fellow supporters. This most extraordinary funeral monument is full of strange symbolism - there is a column that is precisely 1956 millimetres deep.

Kitchen Debates

Moscow

Nixon

Khrushchev

7-24-59

Nixon: "This is the newest model. This is the kind which is built in thousands of units for direct installation in the houses. Any steel worker could buy this house. They earn $3 an hour. This house costs about $100 a month to buy on a contract running 25 to 30 years."

Khrushchev:You think the Russian people will be dumfounded to see these things, but the fact is that newly built Russian houses have all this equipment right now. Moreover, all you have to do to get a house is to be born in the SovietUnion... Yet you say that we are slaves to communism.

The debate continues.

Francis Gary Powers, pilot of the USA U-2 spy plane which crashed in Russia, May 1960, appearing before the US Senate, holding a model of a U-2 plane. He was exchanged by the Russians for Soviet spymaster ABEL.

Nikita Khrushchev, “We will bury you.”

LBJ, “we do not intend to be buried.”

Cuban leader Fidel Castro looks out from a tank during the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.

Berlin Wall and Brandenburg Gate

As Kennedy paid tribute to the spirit of Berliners and to their quest for freedom, the crowd roared with approval upon hearing, “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Robert McNamara, and John Kennedy

Ho Chi Minh Ngo Dinh Diem

General Maxwell Taylor meets with Diem in Saigon.

Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shriveling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning flesh. As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him.

LBJ watching news on three-TV console

William C. Westmoreland, Commander of Military Assistance Command--Vietnam (MACV) from 1964-1968, authorized "search & destroy" missions to lure the VC and NVA into battle where US firepower could annihilate them.

U.S.S. Liberty (June 8, 1967)

Attacked by Israeli fighter planes near Sinai, 34 American sailors killed.

The hole left by an Israeli torpedo.

Israel claims they mistook our ship for the out-of-service Egyptian horse carrier El Quseir.

William Calley

Prague Spring (1968)

On January 23, 1968, the USS PUEBLO was attacked by North Korean naval vessels and MiG jets. Eighty-two surviving crew members were captured and held prisoner for 11 months.

Richard Nixon holds a news conference concerning Vietnam.

Munich Olympics

Smile for détente.

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger holds a press conference.

Nixon in China, February 1972, with Chou En Lai Great Wall

President Carter entertains Deng Xiaoping

Xiaoping with Nixon at WH state dinner

After Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan in 1979, President Carter called for the U.S. team to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

"Misha" the Russian Bear, Mascot of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games

"Sam" the Eagle, Mascot of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games

Brezhnev Gorbachev

AndropovChernenko

Tiananmen Square, June 1989

Students stage a hunger strike.

Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu werecondemned by a military tribunal whose authority they rejected. Their hasty and gruesome execution fueled popular views that they were silenced to conceal the misdeeds of others.